xbox360 JTAG everything you need to know

The 360 is a lot like any computer. It handles files and runs programs. But being secret technology only full understood by it's creator, Microsoft, it's use has been tightly controlled. It does one thing and one thing well: Play 360 games. It has alway been capable of more, but MS never handed over the keys to unlock it. Well, it took four years, but a hidden entrance into the 360 has been found. Once inside, the 360 was freed from it's restrictions.

What a JTAG hacked 360 let's you do

Now that MS no longer controls our hardware, what can we do with it?

Play games off Hard drive
MS lets us "install" games to the hard drive to speed up loading times, but we unnecessarily need the disc in the drive anyway as some sort of piracy check. Not anymore.

Easy HDD replacement
That hard drive that the 360 uses is a cheap off-the-shelf 2.5" laptop drive. But by dipping it in MS goo, we've had to pay a premium to simply upgrade a few more gigabytes. Not with a JTAGed 360. Buy a cheap OEM 500GB drive and put it in yourself without problems.

Homebrew
If the 360 is a lot like any computer, why run only Microsoft approved games? Why not unapproved games and applications made by random hobbiest you never met on the internet? These are called "Homebrew".

Decisions

Now that your 360 is JTAGed, how do we make the most of it? There's more than one way, and so we'll need to make a few decisions.

Internal or External HDD?
If you're going to store your games on the hard drive, you're going to need a lot of space. Each game takes between 3 and 7 gigabytes. Is your current hard drive big enough? You can replace it with a bigger off-the-shelf 2.5" drive, or keep your games on an external usb drive (3.5" or 2.5") plugged into one of the 360's USB ports.

Note
As of now, you can't use title updates, DLCs or play Xbox 1 games without at least a small internal drive. Profiles can be saved on an internal drive or memory unit (MU), but not on a USB drive.

Turn off Live

A JTAGed 360 has no business on Xbox Live. To disable accidental Live connections go to System Settings -> Family Settings -> Console Settings

Prepping Your Bigger Drive

If your current hard drive isn't big enough, you're going to need to replace it with a new internal drive, or add an external USB hard drive.

New Internal
I?d recommend waiting to replace your current hard drive until you feel comfortable with the other aspects of this guide. ***insert instructions here**

External
Your 360 is capable of reading any USB FAT32 mass storage device. An external USB hard drive of any size (3.5" or 2.5") will work, but it must be formatted in FAT32. Not NTFS, not HSFS.
***instructions on formatting*** ***discuss hard drive sleep***

File Transfer & Organization

We need to be able to move files between our Computer, USB drive, and internal drive.

Transfer Cable & Xplorer360
The old method of transferring and organizing files involved the Microsoft transfer kit and a third-party program like Xplorer360.

FTP
Connect your 360 to your router, load your dashboard replacement, and you can upload files via [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] This will be your main method of transferring files from your computer to your internal hard drive.

DVD/CD
Files can be burnt to a DVD/CD. If you burnt a program, it will load when you select ?Play Game? within the NXE dashboard.

Dashboard File Manager
Our replacement dashboard, Freestyle Dash, has a built in file manager. This is a handy way of move, copying, and deleting files from the comfort of our 360 controller.

File System Tour

Before we start messing with a file system that Microsoft never intended us to see, let?s learn how things are laid out.
*Review partitions:* P1, P2 (HDDX), P3 (HDD1), Flash, MU, DVD, MMU
*Talk about TitleID*

FSD

Although we can install and play our games and applications from the regular Microsoft dashboard (NXE), it's not ideal. Plus, that regular dashboard is full of online features that are useless to our offline-only JTAG 360. Now that we can run applications not approved by MS, why not make a new dashboard that has the features a JTAGer wants? That's Freestyle Dashboard.

[ Register or Signin to view external links. ]
To install FSD to your USB drive, connect it to your computer. Copy the "Freestyle" folder to your drive.
Installing FSD to your internal hard drive is trickier. If you have that old transfer kit, you can plug the internal drive right to your computer. In that case, copy the ?Freestyle? folder to ?Partition 3?. If you have xexmenu installed...
If not, do this:
*instructions to burn FSD to cd, copy self*

Booting FSD
Turning on the 360 and exiting games will still take us to the normal NXE dashboard.As of now, there's no way to fully delete and replace it with a new dashboard. FSD is like any other program waiting to be booted. How do we run FSD in the most convenient way?

DVD
I prefer burning a DVD with the FSD shortcut on it. By ?playing? the DVD like a regular game, we load FSD. FSD isn't on the DVD, just a shortcut that points to it. Burn ?freestyle-usb? to a dvd. It?s inside the ?Launch? folder.

This allows us to...
Skip the NXE dashboard and go directly to FSD when we turn the 360 on.
System Settings -> Boot on startup
To return to FSD while in the middle of any (360) game or application.
Xbox button -> Play game on disc
From NXE
One way is installing an FSD shortcut that appears in our game library. You can do this by copying the file ?freestyle-hdd? found in the ?Launch? folder to \Content\00000. I recommend booting to freestyle via the DVD shortcut (or XeXmenu) first, then transfering the freestyle-hdd shortcut via [ Register or Signin to view external links. ]

Tour & Configure settings
Run for first time, create fsdata wherever (FSD 1.x)

Themes
*Instructions- Source. Install. Enable *

Directories
FSD will look for your games and applications in certain directories. These directories are specified in the config.xml file which is found in the ?base? folder.
360 games go in a folder called "Games", applications in "Apps" or "Applications", Xbox 1 games in "Xbox1", and XBLA games go in "Content". These folders can be on the external or internal drive. By editing the config.xml file, you can change these directory names.
XBLA games on non-JTAGed 360s are downloaded to "Content" and so it makes sense for FSD to look for XBLA games there. However, to help with file organization, I keep my XBLA games in their own folder called "XBLA". To do this, I edit my config.xml file and change Content to XBLA.

XeXMenu

Install
You Tube

Install Games

360 and Xbox 1 games can be stored on your hard drive. The easiest way is putting your disc into your 360 and run the CopyDVD function from inside FSD. If you have a 360 or Xbox 1 game ISO file, you can extract it and place the files on your hard drive.

CopyDVD
With game in DVD drive, Press Y -> Copy DVD -> USB or HDD -> Name. When the copying is done, you?ll be presented with a File Completed screen. Unfortunately, the same screen and message appears even when there?s an error. Look for X out of X files. Were all files transfered?

If we can't get online, what about arcade games (XBLA), game updates (Title Updates) and downloadable content (DLC)? A normal 360 can buy, download, and share these files. Then, we simply copy those files to the right location.

XBLA
Place TitleID folder in XBLA\0000000000 (create it if it doesn't exist) or Content\00000000000, depending on your config.xml

Title Updates
Title updates come in a single file and can be downloaded from:
Search for your game and download only the latest update. Place that file in Hdd1\Cache\

DLC
Place the TitleID folder for your DLC into Hdd1\Content\000000000000000
A DLC often comes with a necessary title update file.

FTP To Xbox 360

The main thing here is to know you 360 IP and Subnet. Then input that into your FTP program of choice. Doesn't have to be a crossover cable.
Step 1: How to FTP
The precondition is a modded Xbox (soft modded or hard modded), crossover cable, new/custom (hacked) dashboard on your xbox, FlashFXP (a FTP program). And your Xbox needs to be flashed, autoinstallers can do this.
1: Go into your Xbox dashboard settings and make sure that your IP is set to 192.168.0.100, and that the Subnet Mask is 255.255.255.0, and make sure that Static IP is ON.
2: After saving your settings, connect your Xbox via crossover cable to your computer's Ethernet port.
3: Next go into your Network Connections. Then right-click on "Properties".
4: Click on Internet Protocol and tick the bubble that says "Use the follow IP"
5: Type in 192.168.0.1 for the IP, and the Subnet Mask should be 255.255.255.0
6: Boot up your xbox, then open up FlashFXP or whatever FTP client you are using.
Tip: If you have followed all the steps and still can't connect, your firewall might be stopping you. Try turning it off.
7: In FlashFXP, click on the lightning bolt (quick connect). for the server URL, type in 192.168.0.100, and for the username it should be "xbox" and same for the password.
8: Your computer should now be connected, and it should be showing a bunch of different drives (C,D,E,F,G,X,Y,Z).